State high court rules in lawsuit over fire deaths

The defendants' lawyer said the lighter had child-resistant features.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Making a lighter that lacks sufficient childproofing to keep a 2-year-old from using it isn't grounds for a lawsuit, but the manufacturer could be liable if it ignores an obvious threat to children, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
In a suit filed on behalf of a woman and her two young sons who died in a Mercer County fire, a "strict liability" claim against Cricket Lighters and other defendants was rejected by the justices on grounds that the lighter was not designed for use by children.
But the court said Dec. 3 that the suit's negligence claim -- that the makers allegedly designed a lighter with inadequate child-safety devices despite foreseeable harm -- was an appropriate question for a jury to decide.
Hermitage fire
The lawsuit was filed by Gwen Phillips, a Sharon woman acting as administrator of the estates of her daughter, Robyn Jorjean Williams, 22, and grandsons Jerome I. Campbell, 2, and Alphonso Crawford, 3. All three died in the Nov. 30, 1993, fire at Williams' apartment in Hermitage.
Jerome apparently pulled down his mother's purse from on top of the refrigerator and used the lighter to ignite bed linens.
"I've got pictures of the two kids in bed huddled together just burned to a crisp. One laying on top of the other, just hugging each other," said attorney Henry E. Sewinsky, who represents Phillips and the victims' estates.
Older brother Neil Curtis Williams, then 5, saw Jerome start the fire and was rescued by neighbors. Neil, now 15, also is a plaintiff. Phillips is raising him.
"(They) knew or should have known that young kids were getting these lighters and starting fires and that they could have stopped it by making them child-resistant," Sewinsky said.
Had been dismissed
Judge Francis J. Fornelli of Mercer County Common Pleas Court dismissed the suit in 1998 before it went to trial, and the state Superior Court reversed it in 2001. The Supreme Court decision upheld the negligence suit, rejected the strict liability claim, and directed the Superior Court to reconsider other portions of its decision.
Carl A. Eck, attorney for the defendants, said Tuesday that they were seeking a new round of arguments before the Supreme Court, hoping to persuade the justices that if the lighter is considered to be defect-free for strict-liability purposes, "the same would be true with respect to the negligence count." The parent company of Cricket Lighters is Swedish Match, based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Eck said the lighter had child-resistant features, such as a two-step lighting mechanism, and noted that details of how the fire occurred were not fully aired in court before Judge Fornelli dismissed the case.
In a partially dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Schultz Newman said parents can't keep their children "from all the dangers of the world."
An expert for the plaintiffs estimated that fires caused by children playing with butane lighters kill 120 and injure 750 people a year, causing more than $300 million in property damage.
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